


Electioneering

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Baby-Sitters Club - Ann M. Martin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-25 06:49:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1637375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Story by supersyncspaz7</p><p>Freshman year. Stacey runs for Class President, only to have some very familiar competition.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Electioneering

**Author's Note:**

> Originally, this story was going to have Kristy asking the original four Club members to run for class officers with her. But then I got the idea of having Stacey want to be president, and I really really liked that more and I took it and ran (which meant that I missed the original deadline by a little). I mention a few characters who appear in the late 80s/early 90s books in the series, and I have no knowledge of what happened in the Friends Forever series, so if anything seems kind of odd continuity-wise. that's why.
> 
> Written for zelempa

 

 

ï»¿"So you're really going to do it."

I was kind of surprised to see Kristy Thomas standing in front of me, hands on her hips and looking at me as if I'd strolled in a minute late for a meeting. It was just weird, considering that we no longer shared a similar social circle and that we rarely spoke any more, save for a few "hi"s in the hall as we passed each other. Things were different post-Stoneybrook Middle and post BSC.

So this--Kristy's appearance at my lunch table, that is--was violating the idea that we (Kristy, Mary Anne, Claudia, Abby, and I) were no longer practically absolutely obliged to see each other at least once a day. The other two people at the table--Emily and Claudia--all seemed to stop mid-sentence just to hear what would happen next.

I nodded. "Yes."

Kristy had now crossed her arms. Her fashion sense, or lack thereof, hadn't changed all that much. She was wearing a worn-looking t-shirt that I knew had once been Sam's, jeans, and scuffed sneakers. Out of the five of us (why did I still think of us as being a unit, instead of five separate people?), she was still the shortest. For a moment, I expected a massive breakdown of some sort, but all I got was the same variation of The Look that was given whenever one of us came in to a meeting late. "Oh," she said before turning and walking away.

"Oh my Lord," Claudia said when I finally turned back around. "She's serious."

I bit into a carrot stick. "Maybe she was just wondering..."

Emily shook her head. "No, I think she's seriously serious, Stacey. I mean, you of all people should know how Kristy can get."

"Exactly," Claudia said.

"Please," I said, rolling my eyes. "How bad could it get?"

At SHS, freshmen class officer elections naturally take place in the fall, near the end of September. There are five positions to be filled: president, vice president, secretary, treasurer, and parliamentarian. The class officers do a lot of social planning and fundraising, mostly for senior prom and the senior trip. It was definitely something that was up my alley. Besides, it meant I could have a part in helping to plan our prom later down the road. I had run into Claudia after class on Wednesday, and when she looked at the paper, she raised an eyebrow in surprise.

"You're running for Class President?"

"Why not?" I asked as we made our way down the packed hall towards my locker. A group of boys were running down the hall, and one slammed into my side, knocking my backpack off of my shoulder. I groaned. Funny. I had thought that moving up a grade would actually make boys more mature. Apparently, I was wrong.

Claudia picked up my bag and helped me to my feet. "I don't know, it just seems like you would've chosen to be treasurer... with your math skills and everything. You're already in geometry!"

I shrugged. "I wanted a change. I spent all of seventh and eighth grade doing the books for the Club." I quickly twisted the wheel of the combination lock and pulled the door open after hearing the click. "Who's to say that I couldn't be a great president? I could be a good one, don't you think?"

"Sure, you could." Claudia lightly nudged me in the side to get a better look at herself in the mirror that was attached to the inside of the door. Her hair was done back in an elaborate braid with a length of baby blue ribbon pulled through it, and she had an orange fish barrette holding her bangs back. She wore a black, short-sleeved man's work shirt over a white tank top with an anchor print, a white pleated skirt, black ballet flats, and knee-high socks that had fish designs on them over a pair of black fishnet tights. I had absolutely no idea where she had managed to find the socks. Why she was wearing them over a pair of fishnets was also baffling, even though it somehow worked. At least people weren't staring as much as they had been when she'd strolled into class on the first day in a dress she had semi-altered to look a little like a less formal version of the one from Pretty in Pink. "I would vote for you in a heartbeat. Ooh, and I'll even do campaign posters! And pins. I still have that pin-maker. It'll be great!"

By Friday, I was walking around the hallways, taping posters by water fountains, restrooms, and the cafeteria. Ms. Austen, the freshmen adviser, told me that I was one of the first candidates to come to get my posters approved by her. Claudia had done a great job with them--pale yellow backgrounds with "VOTE FOR STACEY" and "TEAM MCGILL" in bold black paint accented with dark glitter, and my picture set in the center. They were perfect. And they were, I laterÂ  concluded, what had set Kristy off.

The following Monday, there were new posters everywhere. "GO GRAY!" was on a plain white poster board, with "ALAN" in small print over the "GRAY" were all over the science wing. Cokie Mason was attempting a run at vice president--which struck me as being odd, considering how much she enjoyed being in control. Her posters were neon-colored and positioned by all the boys' restrooms (a pretty clever move, I had to admit). But it was Kristy's that caught my attention. They were done in red, white, and blue, and they were everywhere: on classroom doors, haphazardly smacked onto lockers, taped on one of the decrepit pay phones near the back of the school, and even on the paper towel dispenser in the girls' room.

Â Â Â  It was, to be honest, kind of disturbing.

"It's like she's everywhere," Claudia remarked at lunch time as we made our way towards our usual table by the windows. We were both having our usual: for me, a Caesar salad with chicken, and for Claud, a bottle of orange juice, two large chocolate chip cookies, and a Snickers bar from one of the vending machines. We had been talking about Kristy's campaigning practically since we'd met at the cafeteria doors. "I even stepped on one of the fliers earlier today. It was on the bottom of my shoe and no one told me. I think that's worse than trailing toilet paper."

"I can't believe she's actually going this far with it," I admitted. "I mean, this isn't like being president of a baby-sitting business. It's a completely different ballpark!"

"Exactly!" Claudia cried. "And, well, no offense, but it's Kristy. Everybody knows that she's got, uh... that thing. You know, when short people just want to be in charge--a Napoleon complex! Who wants that in a president?"

When the BSC dissolved near the end of eighth grade, a few things changed, for better or for worse.

The first was that we gradually all stopped hanging around with each other as much. This wasn't so bad. It actually gave us all some wiggle room and time to hang out with the other, non-BSC friends that we had. For me, this meant that I spent time with Andi for the first time in what felt like forever. I even brought her along on a weekend visit to the city, which was fun.

The second thing to change was the amount of free time. I didn't have a sitting job scheduled for nearly every other day during the week. I still sat for Charlotte, since the Johanssens practically had me on speed dial and because she was always one of my favorite kids. And occasionally, the DeWitt-Barretts called, and I sat for them. But other than that, the summer before freshman year felt kind of weird, with days without anything to really do except sleep in or try to catch a ride to the mall so that I could check out fall fashions or call Claudia and see if she wanted to do the same.

Okay, it wasn't all that weird. It was actually pretty relieving. And amazing.

The third thing... we split into two groups once school began. Though we had all spent our summer doing our own, different things (Kristy and Abby at sports camps, Mary Anne visiting Dawn in California, Claudia taking a two-week painting class, and me spending a horrifying and hilarious weekend at the Jersey Shore with my dad), we had all planned on meeting after school and doing something together. But it didn't work out. Abby and Kristy were long gone, having been driven home in the Junk Bucket by Sam, and Mary Anne had gone along with them. It seemed that Abby and Kristy, being girl jocks, had finally managed to settle their differences long enough to, well, bond. And Claudia and I had always been close, so that explained that.

Mary Anne, on the other hand, always seemed to be the one who went in between us. On one hand, she had always been closest to Kristy; on the other, she had also been close to Claud practically since they were babies too. She was the lone person who kept me briefed on what was going on with the other girls, since we had kind of grown apart during the summer. So I wasn't surprised when she called me the night before we were set to make our speeches in front of the entire freshman class.

"I think Kristy's a little scared."

"That I'll win?"

"Yeah." I could hear the faint tapping of fingers on a keyboard in the background. I figured that Mary Anne was probably either doing homework or sending an e-mail to Dawn. "I mean, she's not saying it or anything, but, well, she called me about three times last night reading and re-reading her speech to me. She kept asking me if it sounded good and what I thought her chances would be."

I snorted. "Kristy, scared. I'll believe it when I see it."

"Well, she's not shaking in her boots scared," she said. "Just nervous. I mean, on one hand she has a little name recognition going on there. Not every freshman had a monopoly on all the baby-sitting jobs in Stoneybrook a year ago. And it doesn't hurt that people know who Sam is, either."

I hadn't thought about that before. "Now you're making me nervous."

"Stacey, you've got absolutely nothing to be afraid of. Practically everyone likes you, and, well, let's face it... Kristy's great sometimes, but she's not exactly the most likable person on the planet all the time. We all know that. But what she lacks in likability... she makes up for in competence, you know?"

I leaned back on my bed and stared at the ceiling. "God. Now you're almost making me want to vote for her."

"Well, someone's got to be neutral about this."

"Thanks, M.A." I wanted to ask, "Are you going to vote for me?", but I had enough sense to back off. It was a way too loaded question.

There is nothing more nerve-wracking than standing on a stage underneath hot lights in front of every single kid in your graduating class. To make matters worse, I was certain that even though I had more than enough deodorant on, I was going to have sweat stains on my white silk blouse. I had picked out an outfit that I hoped would look "presidential", or at least responsible and stylish: the white blouse, a pale gray vest, and a great black and white plaid kilt. I skimmed over the note cards I'd scrawled a few speech ideas on for the thousandth time as I barely listened to Cokie saying something about having organizational skills.

"Hi."

I dropped the cards. Kristy was standing next to me. 

"Oh. Uh, hi."

She quickly knelt and scooped up my notes. "Wow, only three cards. That's pretty impressive," she commented. "I, uh, had about eight."

"Eight? What for? Detailed policy ideas?"

For a moment, she looked embarrassed. "Yeah. Something kind of like that. It was kind of stupid--this whole long thing about being responsible and knowing how to be responsible, and managing a business and helping people and everything. I read it aloud to my mom and Watson and they both clapped and thought it was really good. And then I read it to Sam, and he said it was too long-winded."

I didn't know what to say, so I just nodded politely.

"And Ms. Austen said that I had to keep it under three minutes, so I'm down to just one card."

"Oh," I said. 

We both looked at each other, and then Kristy began to laugh a little. "It is kind of funny, now that I think about it," she admitted. 

As everyone clapped for Cokie, Ms. Austen announced that the final candidate for vice president would speak next. Kristy cleared her throat as Pete Black walked past her. "So. This is it."

"Yeah," I said, nodding. "This is it."

A moment of awkward silence followed. As Pete continued talking, Kristy whispered, "Why didn't you run for treasurer? You were always really good with the club's money. You would've been great at that."

"I thought about it, but..." To our right, Ms. Austen was motioning for Pete to finish his speech. "I wanted to try something different. I don't know if I'll even be that great at this--if I win, I mean. But it's worth trying, right? I mean, I could, uh... suck. And you could win and be great, or..."

The applause began again. "Or everyone could vote for Alan," Kristy added, rolling her eyes. I laughed.

"Either way," I said as Pete walked past us. "Good luck."

On stage, Ms. Austen was making her announcement. "...and here is your first candidate for Freshman Class President, Alan Gray!"

We clapped politely as Alan walked past us. He blew an air kiss at Kristy, who made a face in disgust.

"Thanks," I said right before Alan began to speak. "Good luck to you too."

 


End file.
